Tracking failure
by Mephisto's Hat
Summary: Using magic without thinking about it can have unforeseen consequences… Episode Tag 6x03.


**Tracking failure**

Summary: Using magic without thinking about it can have unforeseen consequences… Episode Tag 6x03.

No warnings, rated for swearing.

Disclaimer: Once upon a time does not belong to me and chances are it never will. * sniff *

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"Where are you going?"

"To find her."

"How?"

"The way you find Cinderella." With a wave of her hand a blue sneaker poofs into existence upon her hand. "With her shoe."

Prince Thomas and his young daughter both stare at Emma in surprise and equal amounts of wonder. Then he frowns suddenly.

"What?" says Emma "Whats wrong?" Then with a suspicious and slightly worried look "This is _her_ shoe right?"

"Yeah! Yeah, no. That's not the problem."

"What is then?"

"Well it's just… she was just wearing that…"

"Yeah I know, I saw it when we were talking earlier. That's how I was able to summon it. I wouldn't have been able to if I didn't know what it looked like. Neat right?" she said with a slightly fond smile.

Having Magic was so practical. All you needed was one simple possession of said person you were looking for, then you could find anyone! Truth be told, she had been using it very often latently for all sorts of things. It really made every job easier. Why for example, interrupt her make out session with Killian during movie night, when she could just wiggle her fingers and get the bear to come to them? Sure, that had kinda ended badly when the whizzing projectile refreshments had hit her boyfriend in the back of the head… but they'd both laughed about it afterwards. Although Killian did joke that she might have grown a little too dependant on on her powers lately. But she was sure he didn't mean that seriously.

Come to think of it she could barley remember how she managed without it before. Actually that realization did irritate her a little bit. Maybe she was overusing it a little… Though using a tracking spell like this was still much quicker and more effective than hunting through personal affects and trying to guess where it was that her mark was heading she supposed. So she really wasn't overdoing it this time.

With a jolt she realized Thomas was staring at her strangely. Oh shit? Had he just said something?

"Uh… is something wrong Thomas?" Damm, she hoped that didn't come out too flustered.  
A sudden rush of dread filled her at his continued critical gaze and she winced slightly. Oh god, please don't be the shoe. She could have summoned anything really. But she admittedly just choosen the shoe without really thinking about it because of what she was realizing now, might be a slightly off sense of humour. She didn't really know how Ashly's story had gone down in the Enchanted forest, but she had an inkling that it wouldn't have been the cheerful Disney version if she ended up almost having to give up her baby. She hadn't thought about how the shoe might be a sensitive subject to Thomas and now she'd just made a joke out of their history.

"I just said…" he repeated slowly "That if you just magicked her shoe here, then what is my wife wearing?"

Emma just blinked at him.

 _Oh shit._

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 **Authors Note:** This is just a silly thought that came to mind while watching the episode that made me laugh. I also immediately had this mental image of a slightly deranged and bedraggled looking Ashly prowling through the the woods, clutching her Husbands Hunting riffle, tracking her sister and ready for the kill with only one shoe and one very muddy sock. I'd like to think that this is the image that both Emma and Thomas had in their minds as well when they realize that she might now only have one shoe…

Emma is probably a bit OoC. She seems a bit more flippant to me in this than she is in the show. Sorry about that that's just how it came out. Advice as well as criticism would be appreciated as this is the first wee drabble I'm putting out there and I do actually have a quite a few other longer story ideas for this fandom that I have been working on. So any ideas on how to improve my writing would be fantastic.


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